Further education colleges are the bedrock of technical education and training in England. They are critical to delivering growth across the industrial strategy sectors and can transform lives by offering young people and career-changers routes into fulfilling careers. This is why we are transforming further education colleges that demonstrate specialist excellence into technical excellence colleges. Building on the appointment of 10 construction technical excellence colleges in August of last year, today we are announcing 19 new technical excellence colleges in England. These TECs are specialists in the advanced manufacturing, clean energy, defence, and digital and technologies sectors. TECs will work with employers to ensure that the education and training on offer addresses skills gaps in key growth-driving sectors. They will also work with other skills providers aligned with their specialism to improve the quality of the provision on offer across England, ensuring that more learners are able to benefit from technical excellence at their local college.
Backed by £175 million of investment, TECs will help support the Prime Minister’s ambition of delivering two-thirds of young people engaged in higher-level learning by age 25 and access to well-paid jobs for British workers and support delivery of our ambitions for the skills system as set out in the “Post-16 Education and Skills” White Paper. Around 65,000 learners will benefit from studying at a TEC over the next four years, as TECs increase the volume and quality of specialist education and training and boost skills provision that meets local and national needs, supporting specialisms in priority city regions and clusters as set out in the industrial strategy. They will also break down barriers to opportunity, by supporting people to enter key growth-driving sectors whether at the start of their careers as apprentices, or as established workers getting new skills for better paid jobs.
TEC appointments
Today we are announcing the following TECs:
Advanced manufacturing
City of Wolverhampton College
New College Durham
Newcastle and Stafford College Group
Weston College of Further and Higher Education
Clean energy
Colchester Institute
South Bank Colleges
The City of Liverpool College
The Education Training Collective
University Centre Somerset College Group
Defence
Blackpool and the Fylde College
City College Plymouth
Lincoln College
RNN Group
Yeovil College
Digital and technologies
Birmingham Metropolitan College
Capital City College Group
Gloucestershire College
LTE Group
Milton Keynes College
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